Saturday, March 31, 2012

Over the last couple of months I put a lot of thought and effort into living a more natural lifestyle. I have lots and lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I want to be as healthy as possible. In addition to fashion and home decor, I'll be posting some of the wonderful things I've done lately to make those changes. I've made my own laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent. I've "washed" my hair with baking soda and conditioned with apple cider vinegar. I've made my own granola bars and other yummy, natural snacks. I've gone almost full hippy, it seems! I'm definitely still shaving my armpits though and you won't catch me smelling like patchouli any time soon.

Today I'd like to share with you this fabulous, natural body scrub I made last week.

I found the recipe through Pinterest, which lead me to this blog. I'm using her picture here because mine is in my shower and is almost gone :).

Using 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 tsp. of lemon zest, and 1 tsp. of honey, I mixed it all together in a bowl and put the mixture in a jar. Then I apply it gently to my skin during my shower and rinse it off. This body scrub has lasted me about 1 week, so far, and still has about 2 showers left.

I'm not kidding, this is the softest my skin has ever been. This may sound silly but I feel more beautiful. I feel like I'm glowing after a shower! Forget all that expensive beauty store nonsense. This stuff is legit and I'm sure it's better for your skin. It also smells fantastic!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

My house has big walls. I'm serious. Really big walls. We have high ceilings and long walls and I have a really hard time decorating because of it. Now, I don't mean to complain. I love our house and I'm thrilled that we live here. It's just been tough over the past two years to get started on any given wall because I either have to hang one giant piece, or a bunch of little ones.

After picking up an awesome frame at The Goodwill for $6.00 I was inspired to create the following piece to help fill some wall space.

It's tough for you all to see the size of the piece in this picture because you have no frame of reference. I'll just tell you, this is one of our small walls, and thank goodness, my new art almost fills the space.

The design was actually inspired by my Ikea coasters.

The frame came with a cardboard print in it, which I wasn't terribly fond of. I used the cardboard and stretched brown burlap around it, securing the burlap with staples. Then I cut pieces of fabric and glued them to the burlap. I used a rotary cutter for the tree, which helped to keep the lines straight, and I used fabric glue to glue the pieces of fabric to the burlap.

I got the burlap in the remnants bin at JoAnn for less than $2.00 and all the fabric I used were scraps from previous projects. This means I spent less than $8.00 for the entire piece.

Beside saving money, another thing that is so awesome about creating my own wall art, is that I can use whatever colors I want to accent the room. This piece is hanging in my living room, which is mostly decorated in browns, oranges, and greens.

I'm thrilled about how it turned out and have had numerous compliments. So much fun.

So, if you like burlap and/or you like contests, check out these two sites where you can buy or win some burlap.